


Get Lucky

by DuckArmada



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU, F/M, lord have mercy, this is it, this is the motorcycle au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 04:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6359230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuckArmada/pseuds/DuckArmada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ex-racer Marinette isn’t supposed to ride a motorcycle again, much less secretly run Lucky Deliveries, Paris’s most wanted off-the-books courier service. And she’s definitely not supposed to flirt with the cat-obsessed weirdo she hires on. But Papillon Couriers, Inc. will do whatever it takes to shut her down, even as she’s warming up to their CEO’s suspiciously cute son. If she can’t keep her head in the game, one way or another, someone’s going to get Lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Lucky

It’s not the fall that breaks you.

It’s right before. You know you took that turn too fast. And you didn’t check your blind spots. And it was _supposed_ to be a quick ride. So you didn’t even suit up.

You know every way you made it worse. So right before you hit the ground, you know exactly why, exactly _how,_ in every possible way:

This is gonna hurt like hell.

***

Marinette Dupain-Cheng feels the stares the second she shuffles into the classroom this year.

Last year, it wasn’t a shuffle but a swagger. She rolled into the classroom like crossing a finish line, even wearing the same pink-and-black jacket from the track. You saw that pink-and-black through your visor, you could read your tealeaves in the mess of burnt rubber on the track: _Sorry. There’s always next year._

This time last year, she laughed and joked and coasted from classmate to classmate like a press conference, like the winner’s circle, until the warning bell shut the party down.

This year she starts the first day of school in a secondhand gray suede blazer and awkward silence. The stares cling like static as she makes her way to her seat – _do not limp, do not limp, do not –_ and sets her bag down.

Here’s the hard part.

She braces herself on the desk, curls her left leg, slides into the chair. Holds her breath. Stretches her leg back out.

There’s a faint grumble of stiffness from her knee, but that’s all. She lets the breath go.

Some days it’s better than others. Today might be one of those days.

“How you doing, champ?”

Alya drops into the seat beside her. Marinette isn’t sure which is worse, how easy her best friend folds herself into the chair, or how she still uses that nickname.

But for once, the strain in Alya’s voice is comforting. With anyone else, the stiff _“how are you”_ is a way to show pity with none of the pushback. With Alya, it’s code for _“do I need to punch someone.”_

“I’m fine,” Marinette says, and it’s code for _“not yet.”_

And that changes when the prettiest boy Marinette has ever seen walks through the door.

“Don’t get attached,” Alya mutters under her breath, tossing her cloud of hair. Marinette’s always liked how the twists glow with orange, like smoke trailing from the flame. “That’s the Agreste kid.”

 _Strike one._ Marinette swallows.

Pretty Boy has a nervous smile. Nervous eyes. Not what she expects from the son of the man driving her family’s bakery out of business.

It’s cute. He’s cute. Plain jacket, plain shirt, plain jeans, plain, plain, plain. Pretty Boy has taken great pains to blend in, but the logo tucked into a corner of his book bag gives him away. Two of those bags would pay for the last three months of her physical therapy.

Chloé bugles a greeting and launches herself at the pretty Agreste boy. He does not shove her off, like any sane tenth-grader ought to. Instead his nervous smile stretches to show the mildest of buckteeth. And just like that, golden girl Chloé is off to the races, filling him in on every euro she spent over summer vacation as he nods and keeps smiling.

He knows Chloé, and does not run screaming at the sight of her.

_Strike two._

Alya was, as always, right. _Don’t get attached._

“Oh – ” Pretty Boy has found his voice. He extracts his arm from Chloé’s and, to Marinette’s surprise, sidles up to her desk. His green eyes have some gold in them, and she thinks of how the summer sun had hit the leaves outside the window of her hospital room. “You’re – you’re Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

_Oh, Pretty Boy, no. Don’t do this._

“You were in the Parisian Junior Prix in May. I never saw anyone ride like you.”

_Never will again._

“You have the course record now, don’t you?”

Marinette Dupain-Cheng has three course records.

She also has one titanium rod, two plates, and six screws in her right arm. She has the makings of a hardware store in her left leg. And she has a promise that one more crash will cost her the use of both of them, for good this time.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng no longer has a motorcycle to crash anyway.

And she doesn’t have the words now to say so. These days, the answers escape her too easy. They can get away much faster than her. So instead she looks at the desk, wordless, and tries to swallow the hot iron lump in her throat.

_Sorry Pretty Boy. That’s strike three. Try again next year._

“Dude.” That’s Nino. Nino knows everything. All – _almost_ all of the school does. Through her bangs, Marinette sees his brown fingers wrap around the Agreste kid’s elbow and steer him away. His voice isn’t quite muffled enough to block out from across the room.

_“…hit by a drunk – ”_

If she hadn’t taken that turn so fast –

_“ – into a streetlight – ”_

It’s not the fall, it’s the moment before –

_“…can’t ride again.”_

Her left leg begins to throb.

“You okay, Marinette?” Chloé tilts her head, lips pouting in her best imitation of sympathy. “How’s the leg?”

“Fine,” Marinette says, and it’s a lie. “It’s fine today.” It’s still a lie.

_Today was supposed to be better._

“How you doing?” Alya whispers. This time it’s code for _“who do you want me to punch first?”_

Marinette just wants everyone to stop asking.

Pretty Boy Agreste turns to look at her from the other side of the room, and she braces herself for pity. For the look that says it’s a shame it happened to someone so young, it’s a shame it happened to someone so talented, it’s a shame her racing career ended wrapped around a streetlight.

But there’s no pity. There’s just something terribly close to understanding.

Pretty Boy’s father is the reason her parents stay up at night, shuffling papers and staring, grim-faced, at their old-fashioned calculator. His father is the reason they keep shaking the calculator and punching its keys again and again and again.

_Don’t get attached._

It’s a shame his eyes are so green.

“Marinette?” Alya shifts next to her.

“I’m fine.” It’s code for _“nobody needs to be punched.”_

It’s a lie. Marinette has never wanted someone to knock her out more.

***

There’s another flyer in the mail when Marinette brings it in after school. _Papillon Couriers, Inc. – contact us today for pricing in your arrondissement._

She slips it into the recycling before her parents can see.

This time last year, three quarters of the bakery’s business went out the door every night on the back of the local delivery service’s truck. Croissants, quiches, fluffy kouign amann, twists of sacristain, in boxes and trays and wrapped in parchment for the downtown cafés nested beneath the skyscrapers. They had a deal with the Dufours: the delivery fee was split between bakery and café, and the Dupain-Chengs got a discount thanks to the box of macarons handed off to the Dufour’s son each week.

This time last year, the Dupain-Chengs were considering hiring a night-shift baker to help.

Now Tom and Sabine Dupain-Cheng straighten up when Marinette walks in the door, faces carefully cheerful. Sabine slides a paper off the counter. That usually means it’s another bill.

Papillon Couriers, Inc. charges nearly five times what the Dufours asked for. Papillon Couriers, Inc. bought the Dufour’s delivery business a week after Marinette shattered half of herself on Rue des Rondeaux. By the time she’d left the hospital, Papillon Couriers, Inc. had bought out every delivery service in Paris that moved goods outside its own arrondissement.

And that was when the prices went up.

These days the Dupain-Chengs sell to their neighbors and to the occasional tourist wandering too far from Notre Dame. The cafés downtown make do without them. But the Dupain-Chengs can’t make do without the cafés.

“How was school?” Sabine asks, voice stiff with plastic cheer. That’s definitely a bill she’s hiding below the counter.

“Gabriel Agreste’s son is in my class,” Marinette answers. It says everything they need to know.

Or almost everything. “Is he still alive?” Her father takes the mail and exchanges it for a slice of quiche. Leftovers mean another slow morning.

Marinette huffs a laugh. “Yes, but the day’s still young.”

“How was everyone else?”

She shrugs. “Lot of stares. Turns out Alix Kubdel knows Dr. Mercier too.” Alix put it more crudely: the physical therapist had helped after she’d _‘put her spine through a blender on a bad jump.’_

“They’ll stop staring soon, Cherie.” Sabine glances at the clock. “When you’re done eating, will you walk this tarte tatin down to Mr. Fu’s?”

“Sure.” Marinette tries not to grimace. The bakery is comatose; either of her parents could make the trip. And her left leg is starting to burn after the long day.

But that’s exactly why she needs to walk the two blocks to Mr. Fu’s. And that’s why her mother is asking.

It’s gonna hurt like hell before it gets better. So Marinette takes a long time to finish that quiche.

The sky’s clear and flat when she steps back outside. Barely a breeze in the afternoon-warm air. Roads are dry. Perfect riding weather.

_Perfect for someone without a bum left leg._

That’s the catch, really.

The bakery slowly going under, that’s bad luck. Bad timing. Her medical bills haven’t helped either. But even if she took Pretty Boy Agreste hostage, demanded a billion-euro ransom, and cashed it out for the most disgustingly gorgeous Ducati in Paris, she couldn’t even ride it off the lot.

See, that’s the thing they don’t tell you when you’re lying in a hospital bed. They let you puzzle it out on your own, when you’re staring at the stupid pretty leaves outside your window, the only patch of color in your stupid sterile room, while your stupid left leg tries to figure out everywhere it can possibly hurt.

There’s exactly one way to shift gears on a motorcycle. It’s the foot pedal on the left side of the bike.

Bad luck she can handle. But a bad ankle means she can’t handle even shifting out of first.

Maybe someday it’ll be better, and she can work the pedal the way she used to, screaming around turns so fast her racing suit dusts the track. Maybe someday she’ll be able to afford another bike in that vivid custom pink, the one she’d picked because the first time she raced, one of the boys tied a ribbon on her handlebars in that pink.

She’d tied a first-place blue ribbon next to it on the other side of the finish line. And she’d kept them there until the ribbons and the handlebars and that beautiful bike were knotted around a streetlight.

Maybe someday she can remember these mistakes on the back of a bike, so she doesn’t make them again. Maybe she’s due to get lucky. But for now she’ll take a functioning left ankle, thanks.

Mr. Fu’s waiting for her, roosting over a newspaper in his tea-and-spices corner store. His face lights up when she walks inside, but it’s not really her, it’s the box in her hands.

“Tarte tatin, just in time. Will you take a slice with me, Marinette?”

“I just had quiche, but thank you, Monsieur Fu.” She deposits the box on his counter. “How is business?”

He scowls. “Papillon’s here day and night, I tell you, leaving their trash all over my doorstep. I miss the Dufours. At least they had the sense to keep from littering.”

“I didn’t know you delivered.”

“I didn’t! The Dufours did.” He waves a hand at the shelves upon shelves of jars behind him. “Same as your bakery, no doubt. The cafés wanted my tea, the kitchens wanted my spice blends… but now none of them will foot the Papillon’s bill. Pah.”

“Same as me,” Marinette confirms. They exchange the same wide sideways frown: both their stores have a terminal diagnosis.

Mr. Fu shakes his head. “Dufours. Now there’s a family without one brain between the five of them. I never would have sold the business.” He sighs and taps the glass of a terrarium next to the register. The turtle inside lifts its head a moment. “If I were younger, I’d pick up the delivery business myself, but these days I wouldn’t be much faster than my friend here.”

“Same as me,” Marinette repeats. “With no bike and a bad leg, I think your friend might even beat me.”

At that Mr. Fu pauses, an odd look on his face. Then he picks up the tarte tatin’s box, hops down from his chair, and flips the store’s sign to ‘Closed.’ “You should take a slice with me after all, mademoiselle.”

“I’m really not hungry –”

He’s ducking through the back doorway before she can finish. Annoyed, Marinette follows. Her knee is really starting to hurt like hell.

She’s been to the other side of Fu’s store before, tagging along with her parents as they buy cinnamon sticks and cloves and a dozen other fierce-smelling spices straight out of his bulk shipments. But for the first time, he passes right by the kitchen and goes to a side door. It opens to dark. There’s the ratchet hiss of a chain, and then a single bulb flickers to life.

It’s a storage shed – more like a closet, really – full of almost as much hardware as Marinette’s leg. Wrenches, nuts, springs, hoses, oil cans, polish… but that’s just the decorations. The room’s true centerpiece is the gleaming cherry-red vintage motorcycle waiting inside.

One look says how well-maintained it is. The engine’s a strange make, doesn’t look like any V-twin she knows, not even a parallel-twin, but it still looks like it’ll get the job done. Treads are thick and toothy. Steering fork is immaculate as the Virgin Mary. A fat topcase is bolted behind the seat, big enough for a spare helmet and then some. And there’s a sweet pink burn to the paint job, an eye-snagging flare that hits like a toothache.

It’s a beautiful machine. No racing bike, but built for roads that might fight back. She’ll never want any bike more than her old pink racer, but this… this is a photo-finish second.

“Can’t ride her anymore, my reflexes aren’t what they used to be,” Fu is saying. Marinette blinks. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t.”

It’s not the fall, it’s the moments after, when you’re lying there, knowing there’s certain realities when you hit the ground at a certain speed, and they’re about to catch up.

Her throat closes. She fights through it with the patience of lots of practice. “No… Monsieur Fu, this is really generous, but my foot’s busted –”

He gestures for her to come around the front of the bike, to the left side. She grudgingly walks over. As she does, light slides over the gas tank, and she sees round black spots flash and vanish. Holographic paint. The man is dedicated, if delusional.

“I can’t work the gear shift,” she says flatly.

“Which one?” Mr. Fu asks.

She points –

\- to where one should be. Instead there’s only a footrest.

Mr. Fu pats the left handlebar, just under the clutch lever. There’s a strange little switch there, one that would be a pain in the ass to work with a hand on the clutch, but if the clutch is already down to switch gears…

Fu is laughing. He’s laughing at _her,_ Marinette realizes.

“You think you’re the first kid who can’t use a standard gear shift?” he practically cackles, and slaps his own left leg for emphasis. “It's a hand shift. Put it in when I shredded my knee three decades ago. Sure, you’ll be kicking at a ghost shift for a few days, but a champ like you…” Fu grins. “When you get used to it, you’ll be hell to catch.”

Marinette’s breath chokes like a throttle.

A bike. She could ride a bike again.

“…just a loan, you know,” Fu’s rattling off again, “until you can get your own ride. But Tikki always brought me good luck on the road. Seems like we could use some now.”

 _Tikki._ Letters flash on the gas tank, same paint as the phantom-spots blooming on the fenders and the topcase. Ladybug spots. Smart choice. Ladybugs are supposed to bring good luck.

Then she gets it. Why he’s even thinking about loaning her this beautiful lucky bike.

“You want me to take your deliveries,” she says slowly. The ladybug spots almost seem to blink on and off at that.

Fu coughs politely. “I’ll pay. And so will others. We all need an alternative delivery service if we want to stay in business.”

Marinette stares at the bike. At Tikki. She could save her parent’s bakery.

If her parents don’t murder her for getting back on a bike first.

“I think it’s time someone gave Papillon a little hell,” Fu says. “What do you think?”

It’s not the fall, it’s the moment you look at the motorcycle and decide to roll your dice on the road.

There’s a little hell in Marinette’s smile.

“I think it’s time to get lucky.”

**Author's Note:**

> pray for me.


End file.
